The Taj Mahal and the Flight from Hell (to Goa).
I ended up booking my ticket and flying to Goa in a fit of pique, but am delighted to be out of Delhi, and even happier to be in Goa. While on the flight, I found the time to write the following piece on Agra and the Taj Mahal:
"I am writing this on the plane to Goa. Man that air hostess is hot. These are the worst people for boarding planes I have seen. It defies belief. You'd never think they were given seat numbers on their boarding cards: they just sit wherever they want. Their hand-luggage is bigger the back-pack I checked in - the back-pack I was worried might be too heavy for a domestic flight. The guy in front of me has already reclined his seat all the way back and we haven't yet taken off. And, although I haven't checked, I wouldn't be surprised if his tray-table wasn't stowed in the fully upright position. Twenty-something, middle class, Indian men are the worst behaved of any nation I know, and this flight is full of them.
"Ooo, they all just shut up for the safety spiel, perhaps because those giving the demonstration are worth keeping quiet for. I knew there were more attractive women in this country, it just turns out they were all on aeroplanes. Should have guessed.
"So, I am meant to be writing about Agra and the Taj Mahal, and since the former is almost the biggest hole we've seen (Siliguri was worse), I'll concentrate on the latter.
"Becky and I met our driver at our hotel early in the morning.We picked up our tour guide for the next few hours en route, and arrived at the Taj Mahal complex by 07.00.
"The guy next to me keeps elbowing me in the ribs. No idea of personal space. As soon as the announcement requesting everyone to stay seated had finished, a man stood up. And there goes another one. This could be the longest two-hour flight in history. My neighbour keeps trying to read over my shoulder. I hope he reads the rib thing. Maybe I should write more legibly to make sure. Now where was I?
"Ah yes. There is an exclusion zone of about 1km radius around the Taj Mahal itself where cars cannot drive, due to fears about pollution affecting the marble, so we hopped on the electric bus that shuttles tourists to the main attraction. There was also a camel in the car park. I never found out why.
"Despite the fact that we're at the end of the runway and the engines are powering up, there's a man near the front of the plane that won't stop pressing the button calling for the air-hostess. Unbelievable.
"Anyway. A brief history lesson: The Taj Mahal was built, as you may be aware, by the 17th Century Mughal Emperor, Shah Jahan. He paid for and helped design the building after his favourite wife, Mumtaz Mahal, died giving birth to their 14th child. (This is what happens when people don't have television.) The Taj became her tomb, and is known as the eternal monument to love, but I have a different theory about its origins.
"In my learned opinion, Emperor Shah Jahan erected the Taj Mahal as an eternal monument to Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. This is the most symmetrical building there will ever be. The gardens are symmetrical. The mosque and living quarters flanking the building look identical. The Taj itself looks identical from four different sides. The inlay work is disturbingly regular in design.
"Not content with all of this, he wanted to build an identical building of black marble on the other side of the river to act as his own tomb, with a bridge linking the two. It was at this point that his third son, Aurangzeb, intervened. Having killed all other potential successors, he had his Father put under house-arrest in Agra fort, where he lived out his last seven years, presumeably spent washing his hands and avoiding the cracks in the floor. Aurangzeb imprisoned his Father to curb his spending and seize control, but his timing meant that Shah Jahan never got to enjoy his last magnificent erection - the Red Fort in Delhi.
"When the Emperor died in 1666, Aurangzeb, who obviously never quite understood his Father's obsession with symmetry, buried him in the Taj Mahal next to his wife, and thus his tomb is the only thing to ruin the symmetry of the building. A pathetic end. In fact, it is my learned opinion the Aurangzeb deliberately suggested this final resting place to his Father in a final attempt to finish him off.
"So, in summary, good day, nice building, was prepared to be under-awed but was not. Sunrise made it look pretty. Took lots of pictures."
You can see these pictures at http://TobysTaj.blogspot.com.
At the end of the flight, when the exasperated air hostess had finally got them all to turn off their phones and sit in their seats, she went and strapped herself in for landing. And then, as soon as we had descended below the clouds, all the men sitting in the aisle seats undid their seatbelts, stood up and leaned right over to see out of the window. They behaved more like 14 year-olds on a school trip. It really was unbelievable.
But I'm here now.
And it's great!
Toby.
"I am writing this on the plane to Goa. Man that air hostess is hot. These are the worst people for boarding planes I have seen. It defies belief. You'd never think they were given seat numbers on their boarding cards: they just sit wherever they want. Their hand-luggage is bigger the back-pack I checked in - the back-pack I was worried might be too heavy for a domestic flight. The guy in front of me has already reclined his seat all the way back and we haven't yet taken off. And, although I haven't checked, I wouldn't be surprised if his tray-table wasn't stowed in the fully upright position. Twenty-something, middle class, Indian men are the worst behaved of any nation I know, and this flight is full of them.
"Ooo, they all just shut up for the safety spiel, perhaps because those giving the demonstration are worth keeping quiet for. I knew there were more attractive women in this country, it just turns out they were all on aeroplanes. Should have guessed.
"So, I am meant to be writing about Agra and the Taj Mahal, and since the former is almost the biggest hole we've seen (Siliguri was worse), I'll concentrate on the latter.
"Becky and I met our driver at our hotel early in the morning.We picked up our tour guide for the next few hours en route, and arrived at the Taj Mahal complex by 07.00.
"The guy next to me keeps elbowing me in the ribs. No idea of personal space. As soon as the announcement requesting everyone to stay seated had finished, a man stood up. And there goes another one. This could be the longest two-hour flight in history. My neighbour keeps trying to read over my shoulder. I hope he reads the rib thing. Maybe I should write more legibly to make sure. Now where was I?
"Ah yes. There is an exclusion zone of about 1km radius around the Taj Mahal itself where cars cannot drive, due to fears about pollution affecting the marble, so we hopped on the electric bus that shuttles tourists to the main attraction. There was also a camel in the car park. I never found out why.
"Despite the fact that we're at the end of the runway and the engines are powering up, there's a man near the front of the plane that won't stop pressing the button calling for the air-hostess. Unbelievable.
"Anyway. A brief history lesson: The Taj Mahal was built, as you may be aware, by the 17th Century Mughal Emperor, Shah Jahan. He paid for and helped design the building after his favourite wife, Mumtaz Mahal, died giving birth to their 14th child. (This is what happens when people don't have television.) The Taj became her tomb, and is known as the eternal monument to love, but I have a different theory about its origins.
"In my learned opinion, Emperor Shah Jahan erected the Taj Mahal as an eternal monument to Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. This is the most symmetrical building there will ever be. The gardens are symmetrical. The mosque and living quarters flanking the building look identical. The Taj itself looks identical from four different sides. The inlay work is disturbingly regular in design.
"Not content with all of this, he wanted to build an identical building of black marble on the other side of the river to act as his own tomb, with a bridge linking the two. It was at this point that his third son, Aurangzeb, intervened. Having killed all other potential successors, he had his Father put under house-arrest in Agra fort, where he lived out his last seven years, presumeably spent washing his hands and avoiding the cracks in the floor. Aurangzeb imprisoned his Father to curb his spending and seize control, but his timing meant that Shah Jahan never got to enjoy his last magnificent erection - the Red Fort in Delhi.
"When the Emperor died in 1666, Aurangzeb, who obviously never quite understood his Father's obsession with symmetry, buried him in the Taj Mahal next to his wife, and thus his tomb is the only thing to ruin the symmetry of the building. A pathetic end. In fact, it is my learned opinion the Aurangzeb deliberately suggested this final resting place to his Father in a final attempt to finish him off.
"So, in summary, good day, nice building, was prepared to be under-awed but was not. Sunrise made it look pretty. Took lots of pictures."
You can see these pictures at http://TobysTaj.blogspot.com.
At the end of the flight, when the exasperated air hostess had finally got them all to turn off their phones and sit in their seats, she went and strapped herself in for landing. And then, as soon as we had descended below the clouds, all the men sitting in the aisle seats undid their seatbelts, stood up and leaned right over to see out of the window. They behaved more like 14 year-olds on a school trip. It really was unbelievable.
But I'm here now.
And it's great!
Toby.
posted by Toby at 15:14
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